


A Sixer of Plevnan Siperia

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Written as a gift for someone who wanted a ficlet with Darcy Lewis as the protagonist.  It's set right after The Snap in Infinity War.





	A Sixer of Plevnan Siperia

Darcy stared out at the frozen waters of the Gulf of Finland.  Helsinki was quiet. Ice had formed around the hulls of all the boats in the harbor.  And half of the people were gone.

She hadn’t followed Jane up here for the professional opportunity; all the department heads of her various majors at the U of A were fighting over her.  She could have had her pick of fellowships from any of the departments she’d gotten masters degrees from; political science, 17th century German literature, calculus, philosophy.  She had just come up here because Jane was her friend, and because she liked the crazy shit that seemed to happen around Jane.

“Hello, Darcy,” a male voice said.  She recognized the accent.

“Hey, Thor,” she said without turning around.  Normally she’d be excited to see that big old magical beefcake, but today was not one of those days.  Not with half the world gone.

He came up beside her and stared out at the water with her.  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he inquired.

She looked up at him for a moment before answering.  “Where’s your eyeball?” she demanded.

“I have two,” he protested.

“Yeah, but that one’s fake, I can see the mechanism that works the iris when the light hits it the right way.”  She turned back to the water. “What happened?”

“Well, my sister took it.” 

“And I thought it sucked when my sister cut my hair in my sleep.”  She looked again. “Though it looks like yours did that too.”

Thor rubbed his newly-shorn hair awkwardly.  “Yes, well, this was the work of an elderly man on a coliseum planet full of battle-slaves. I hated it at first, but now I think it looks rather serious and masculine.” 

“Yeah,” she retorted, “because you were definitely not dudely enough before.”

An awkward silence fell.  Thor took a deep breath. “Were you with her when she…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Darcy nodded.  “Yeah. I mean, I get why you couldn’t be there, trying to save the world and whatever, but…”  She ineffectually punched him in the shoulder, which didn’t accomplish much apart from hurting her hand.  “Jeez,” she complained, “it’s like punching a frozen pot roast.” 

“Have you done that often?”

“A couple of times.”  

Thor reached into a rucksack he carried, opened a cold bottle of Plevnan Siperia and handed it to her.

She was incredulous.  “You figured out the local beer scene already?  You’ve been here like five minutes.” 

“Beer is important,” he answered easily.  He opened his own beer and they stared at the water a few minutes more while they drank.  Having a god on your side was supposed to be a little more comforting than this.

“So, you have a plan, right?” she asked him finally. “To fix it?”

Thor sighed.  “Well, Stark has one.” 

She nodded.  “Is it a good one?” 

Thor shrugged.  “It’s the only one.” 

She pulled a long draught of her beer.  It was good. It had become her go-to since she moved here with Jane six months ago.  “So why’d you come here?” 

“I didn’t know where else to go to say goodbye.” 

“But you’re not saying goodbye,” she said firmly.  “Stark has a plan, and you guys are gonna fix this.” 

Thor drank, and nodded noncommittally as he did.

Darcy got angry.  She turned and faced him, shaking a finger in his face.  “Look, Jane believed in you, right up till the end when she started turning into fireplace sweepings.  I wanna punch you again, but I’m not going to, because it’ll hurt, but I should! You’re bringing shame to your ancestors and whatnot, Thor.  I’m an atheist, okay, but I believed in you because you’re supposed to be a god! So quit sitting here, staring at the water, and feeling bad because you didn’t save Jane, and go save the universe!  Fix this clusterfuck! What kind of hero are you? Jeez.” She glanced at an umbrella handle sticking out of his rucksack, and remembered that he sometimes manifested his hammer in a more mundane form to tote it around on Earth.  “Is that Myomyah?” At first she’d struggled to remember the name of Thor’s hammer but now she just mispronounced it on purpose because it annoyed him and amused her.

“No, my sister destroyed Mjolnir.” 

Darcy whistled.  “Wow, rude.” 

“Goddess of death,” he offered, by way of explanation. 

“I always said death was a bitch.”  She shook her head. “Anyway, so what’s that?”

“Stormbreaker.  It’s an axe.” He fingered a conspicuous tear in the canvas of the rucksack.  “I forgot to manifest it as an umbrella before trying to put it in the sack.”

“Nice.”  She remembered then that she was still mad.  “Anyway, stop scratching your fancy Asgardian axe-hole, and go fix everything!  And don’t come back to Helsinki till you do!” She paused. “Boy, I never imagined I’d say ‘don’t come back to Helsinki’ as a threat.” 

Thor smiled. “Thank you, Darcy.” 

She pushed at his shoulder.  “Shoo. Go.” 

  
  


*****

  
  


Darcy woke the following morning with six phone messages from various department heads at the University of Helsinki, offering her promotions because half of their people had disappeared.

She also woke to a lithe redhead in very tight black clothes lounging in the corner of the room.

Darcy yawned.  “You an Avenger?” 

She nodded.

“Black Widow, right?”

She nodded again. 

Darcy rubbed her eyes.  “Whaddya want?” 

Black Widow hesitated, then leaned forward out of the shadows.  Darcy had never noticed how ridiculously gorgeous she was before.  Then again, most of the times she saw her were blurry action photos in the newspapers.  “I want to know what you said to Thor.” 

Darcy sighed heavily.  “Why? Are you gonna kill me or something?”

Black Widow sat up, looking first confused and then offended.  “What? No. He just … came back from Helsinki like someone shoved a jalapeno up his ass and he said he talked to you.  I just wanted to know what you said. I… I could use a pep talk too.” 

Darcy blinked.  “You came to Helsinki for a pep talk from a perennial grad student you don’t know.”  

“You say that like it’s weird.”  

Darcy shrugged.  “I guess not.” 

  
  


*****

  
  


Over the next few days, other Avengers started popping up.  An exceptionally scruffy Captain America accosted her in the outdoor market by the pier.  A weary-looking Tony Stark showed up at the university labs in an $800 track suit. And that really hunky guy with the bow and arrow thing came knocking on her door with a sixer of Plevnan Siperia.

“You came all the way from Pennsylvania and you couldn’t bring me Yuengling?” 

“Sorry, I didn’t know.  Thor said this was what everyone drinks here.” 

Darcy sighed.  “Whatever. Come in.” 

Bruce Banner invaded a day later with a pepperoni pizza that he’d loaded onto the quinjet.  She was glad to see pizza. It had been a while. You could only do so much with herring and jarlsberg cheese.

And each time, it was the same thing.  She’d yell at them a little, and they’d leave seeming happy about it.  

She watched things on the news, which was mostly in Finnish, but she picked up enough to know that weird shit was going on everywhere.  She missed Jane. She missed that goofy Finnish guy she’d been dating. Things happened, and then sometimes unhappened, and she couldn’t remember things she knew she ought to be able to.

And then, she went outside one morning, late.  The sun was pale yellow and beaming its buttery light across the brick buildings in the square.  And there were people. A kid rode by on a bicycle, nearly knocking her over. Her cell phone rang.  

“Uh… hello?” 

It was Jane.  “Darcy, where are you?  You’re like an hour late for work.” 

She knew that Jane wasn’t supposed to be calling her now, but she couldn’t remember why.  “Uh… sorry… I don’t know… I think I overslept.” 

Darcy jogged the whole way to the lab.

When she got there, Jane was standing there, in her lab coat, all the gear lit up and ready to run some experiment or other.  And she was accompanied by Thor, and a bunch of people who looked very, very familiar.

“Darcy, there you are!”  

Darcy came over to Jane and hugged her, hard.  She wasn’t sure why.

“What… what’s that for?” Jane wondered.

Darcy shrugged.  “I don’t know. Who are these guys?”  She jerked her chin toward the little group assembled with Thor.

“Well,” Jane said, “you know Thor of course, and this is Natasha, Clint, Tony, Steve, and this is Bruce Banner.”  

Darcy ran over to him and grabbed his hand.  “Hey,” she exclaimed, “I know you!”

He nodded wearily as he shook her hand.  “Yeah, that’s right,” he sighed, “I’m The H-”

“The most famous theoretical physicist in the world!” Darcy finished.

Bruce grinned, lopsided and slightly confused. “Can… can we keep her?”  He turned to the redhead. “Nat, can we keep her?”

“Not a chance,” Jane said.

Darcy had the sense that something had happened before this, something that would have made this entire moment impossible.  But she couldn’t find it. She texted her boyfriend.

_ Greg, got superheroes visiting the lab today.  Probably gonna be a long day. Make sure we have a sixer of Plevnan Siperia when I get home.  _


End file.
